The Diplomat drops season two trailer, reveals premiere date, and first look at Allison Janney

Allison Janney is in the house!

It may have escaped your notice earlier but Janney joined the cast for the second season of compulsive political thriller The Diplomat — and now we have absolute proof.

The first trailer for The Diplomat’s next instalment dropped today and at the end of it, the camera dramatically reveals the Emmy and Oscar winner at the top of a set of grand stairs, looking every bit the ice queen as she exchanges an if-looks-could-kill glance with Keri Russell’s Kate Wyler.

Janney will be a guest star, playing the American vice-president Grace Penn, who is suspicious of Kate, her administration’s ambassador in London who has had to contend with a terror attack on a British warship and a fractured marriage to an ambitious man who will put his career ahead of their relationship.

Penn doesn’t trust Kate because she thinks the titular diplomat wants her job — and she would be onto something.

The lack of trust isn’t confined to between Kate and Penn. It’s baked into the DNA of The Diplomat. Everyone is scheming and plotting, especially the British PM (Rory Kinnear), who, it turns out, orchestrated that attack on the warship in order to set in motion a plan to shore up his electoral appeal. So dastardly.

The creator and showrunner of The Diplomat, Debora Cahn, told Netflix’s inhouse website Tudum, “The US and the UK don’t spy on each other. In fact, they share all their intelligence. So, how do you investigate the PM? Who do you trust?”

Also revealed in the trailer: Kate’s opportunistic husband Hal (Rufus Sewell) survives the car bomb in the closing moments of season one. As does Stuart, the deputy chief of mission played by Ato Essandoh, who was even closer to the car that went kaboom.

Stuart is not the trailer but he is a series of photos released from season two and the character is pictured with scars on his face, a little trauma souvenir from the violent incident.

The Diplomat premiered in April 2023 and immediately rocketed up Netflix’s viewership charts as audiences discovered the show’s mix of political intrigue, espionage beats and personal relationship drama.

Cahn had previously worked as a writer on The West Wing, Homeland and Grey’s Anatomy, and The Diplomat is the distillation of everything she picked up in those writing rooms.

It also stars David Gyasi, Ali Ahn, Celia Imrie, Michael McKean and Miguel Sandoval.

Russell was nominated for an Emmy and a Screen Actors Guild award for her performance in the first season.

The Diplomat returns on Netflix on October 31